


Me, myself and I

by FantasyFreak_2



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Extremly touch-starved, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not-Them Sasha James Has Been Replaced, Touch-Starved, since Jon needed a third assistant because Martin wasn´t there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27894976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasyFreak_2/pseuds/FantasyFreak_2
Summary: Martin Blackwood didn´t know anymore when he had touched the cursed snow globe. He only knew he had lived a lonely life even before touching it and that it had... called to him. Since he touched it no one could see or interact with him. He tried everything he could think of but nothing worked. It was like he didn´t exist at all.The globe had been sold and resold several times until it ended up in the Magnus Archive. He had watched Gertrude Robinson and her assistants research the kind of experiences he had himself. Deep in himself he hoped to find a way out of his cursed existence but he never could find any. First Gertrude´s assistance died one after the other, then she herself, then new people came in. Martin didn´t care, in the end they wouldn´t be able to see him either way.Until a paranoid Jon Sims stumbled in the artefact chamber and knocked over Martin´s snow globe which cracked. And for the first time in decades someone is able to see him.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 18
Kudos: 138





	1. Prologue

Since Jane Prentiss attack days before Jon knew – he KNEW – that something evil had taken residence in the archives. He just didn´t know what it was. Both his bosses statement of what happened as well as the statement of his three assistants – Sasha, Tim and Amelia fit together perfectly. Not speaking of the fact that Sasha, Tim and himself had stumbled into the tunnels together. 

But Sasha was the one that gotten split from them and found Gertrude´s body. Who knew what else she did while being away from them? On the other hand, if she was evil she wouldn´t have told Jon about her corpse, would she? Unless it was part of her evil plan to make him trust her. And Tim was the one who had gotten Sasha and him out of the safe room and into the tunnels in the first place, he didn´t need to save them. And Amelia had gone to Elias and got him to turn on the fire suppression system. Although they apparently had gotten separated before Elias managed to turn it on so she did have the time to do something terrible. And Elias had taken suspiciously long to turn on the system too. 

He had been thinking in circles for days – this wouldn´t bring him any further in his investigations. Maybe he should follow Tim home again… but last time he complained to Elias and Jon really didn´t need another lecture.

If he only knew more of what Gertrude was doing before getting killed maybe he could find a motive and through that find whoever did it. But the police took all the tapes she had made before dying. What else would an archivist leave behind…?

The artifacts! Surely Gertrude had taken cursed artifacts considering that they were regularly brought into the archives. Jon had to deal with several of them himself already. Maybe he could find a clue to what she was doing in her last days through that?

He rushed down the corridors completely ignoring Amelia who waved at him as he walked by and into the Artifact room. It was dark and stuffed full with different gadgets that were supposedly cursed. Jon doubted most of it was more than old antiques but a few things… there was this table that had been brought in by Breekon and Hope. It gave him a bad feeling so he avoided looking at it while making his way hurriedly across the room to where the lists were located that showed when which artifact was accepted.

But his distraction let him to carelessly brushing his arm across an old shelf and he heard a loud crack of something falling to the ground. He cursed and ducked down to find whatever he just broke. It was an old snow-globe that showed a small, snowed-in cottage in the mountains. Jon didn´t know why but the house seemed… isolated to him. Lonely. 

He moved the snow globe around in his hand and discovered to his relief that it had only gotten a small crack on its glass. Still that was bad enough; he was sure to get a talking to once the damage was discovered. He sighed.

“Oh don´t worry.” A male voice said behind him. “I tried everything I could to destroy that old thing and it didn´t get as much as a scratch.”

Jon jumped in shock and spun around. Behind him stood a rather heavy-set man clothed in a comfortable jumper and jeans. He was a head bigger than Jon himself (not very unusual) and there was a sad smile on his kind face. But what was really remarkable was that he stood further in the room than Jon was even though he would have definitely seen him standing there while coming into the room and it was too narrow that he could have snuck past him.

“H... How did you do that?” Jon stuttered flustered. “You just appeared in the middle of the room. And who the hell are you?”

The man´s mouth fell open in shock and he looked at Jon as if he had seen a ghost. “You... you can see me.”

Jon felt himself grow impatient. “Yes, obviously. Now tell me what you are doing here!”

The stranger reached out to him and poked him in the shoulder. 

Jon slapped his hand away. “What are you doing? You can´t just touch people without asking.”

Then the man started to cry.


	2. Curses and monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin explains his curse to Jon and reveals some other things he learned in the archives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very... wet chapter. Sorry, I promise it gets better.

Jon started panicking when the man in front of him started crying. This was definitely not a situation he was suited to solve. Where were Sasha and Tim when you needed them? Even Elias was more empathic than him. What was he supposed to do?

He decided to awkwardly pat his shoulder. “Eh... it´s ok? Please don´t cry. I don´t know what is going on but I´m sure we can solve it, just calm down so we can talk about it.”

It seemed to have the opposite effect from what he intended when the man started sobbing harder but after a few seconds he seemed to pull himself together. He took a few deep breaths and rubbed the tears off his cheek. “I´m sorry... I... my name is Martin... Martin Blackwood I think... I... it´s just... you aren´t supposed to be able to see me.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Why not? If you were trying to sneak in you weren´t very competent about it.”

Martin let out a laugh that sounded closer to a sob. “No I wasn´t trying to sneak in. I... I´m cursed so that no one can see me... or touch me.”

“Cursed?” Jon couldn´t keep the scepticism out of his voice.

“And that is coming from the man who had been attacked by magic worms only a few days ago.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I was HERE!” Martin started to sound frustrated. “I was here for YEARS and no one knows because I´m cursed. That... that damn snow globe cursed me!”

Jon raised his hand which still held the snow globe and looked down at it. It looked like a perfectly normal snow globe except... “It´s cracked.”

“What?” Martin took hold of Jon´s hand to pull the snow globe closer to him. “How? I tried everything to destroy it for ages?”

“I don´t. I... I just brushed against it and it fell to the ground.”

“It must be because you’re the Archivist.” Martin said more to himself than Jon. “A Beholding type.”

“What?”

He ignored his question and started pulling on Jon´s arm to get him to the door of the artefact room. “Come on, we have to try if it works with other people.”

Jon followed Martin still dumbfounded by the situation but his curiosity was taking over. Outside the room they found Amelia who stood in the corridor and smiled at seeing them. “Hello Jon.”

Jon nodded impatiently back. “Hello Amelia, have you met Martin?” He gestured to him.

Amelia looked at Jon with glassy eyes for a few moments then she blinked and smiled again. “Hello Jon, what are you doing down here?”

“What?” Jon asked confused. “That´s irrelevant now, I asked you about Martin!”

His assistant again starred for a few seconds before she answered. “Irrelevant? Uhhhh, is it a secret? I´m good at keeping secrets.”

“No, I´m not... Look don´t you see him?” Jon took Amelia´s hand and pressed it against Martin´s shoulder. 

Amelia blinked twice and pulled her hand back as soon as Jon let go. “It´s ok if you don´t want to tell me. Keep your secrets.” She turned around and walked away without so much as glancing at Martin.

Jon starred at her back. “Well that was... weird.” 

He turned around to Martin and only then noticed that tears had started leaking out of his eyes again but he wasn´t sobbing this time. It was a calmer kind of crying, the kind where you didn´t want people to notice – or maybe he just knew no one would notice anyway. “The curse isn´t broken. Nothing has changed at all, I should have known it.” There was a hopeless look in his eyes that haunted Jon. “I should just go back again.” He turned back to the artefact room

“No.” Jon suddenly was deathly afraid of what would happen if he let Martin out of his sight for even a second. He took his hand and pulled Martin towards himself. Martin stumbled at the sudden pull and Jon only managed to catch him by holding him up with both his arms – more or less pulling him into a hug. “No, Martin it´s ok. I can still see you, we´ll manage to find a solution.”

Martin put his face against Jon´s shoulder and Jon felt his shirt become wet but he didn´t care. At the same time Martin held on to him so hard that Jon´s rips protested as if he was afraid that Jon would just disappear again.

“What... if there isn´t... a solution.” Martin sobbed.

Jon swallowed. He couldn´t even help himself how was he supposed to help Martin? But he couldn´t just let him leave him to his suffering either. “If there isn´t a solution...” Jon answered. “Then you still have me.”

“You don´t have to...” Martin protested.

“I want to.” Jon disagreed. “You weren´t the only one feeling lonely in the last few days. I can´t trust anyone around here because I know... I KNOW someone here is a traitor. But I very much doubt that you killed Gertrude.”

“No.” Martin agreed. “That was Elias.”

Jon felt as if all the blood in his veins had turned into ice. “What did you just say?”

“Elias killed her.” Martin answered in a steady voice as if he was talking about the weather. “Probably because she wanted to burn the archives down. And she probably wanted to do that to stop him from bringing the apocalypse upon us.”

“How... How do you...”

Martin raised his head from Jon´s shoulder and smiled sadly down at him. “I´ve been here for years – have you forgotten that already? I know most things that happened around here. Did you know that that woman you just talked to isn´t Amelia?”

“What? No. No of course that is Amelia.” Jon protested.

“Oh Jon.” Martin looked at him full of pity. “No she isn´t. That is a monster that makes you believe it is Amelia. The real Amelia has been dead for days.”

“No. No that can´t be. She looks like Amelia.”

“Does she really?” Martin asked in a soft voice. “Do you remember the statement about the table that right now is in the artefact room?”

“I...” Jon tried to remember – really remember Amelia´s face and he felt a headache come up so strong that he put his hands on his temples to stop the pain. “I don´t... I can´t...”

Martin comfortingly patted his back. “It´s ok. It´s not your fault.”

This time Jon felt the tears fall from his own eyes. “How can I not even remember her? What kind of... terrible friend am I? She is dead and I can´t even...” 

Martin pulled him into a hug as he started sobbing.


	3. Whistle-blower Martin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New revelation get made by Martin.

It took a long time for Jon to calm down again. At some point Martin had pulled him in a corner of the corridor where they sat next to each other but Jon leaned on him so much that he was basically in his lap. In any other situation Jon would be mortified to sit in a strangers lap but right now he was numb to it all. It had just been too much in the last few days – few months.

He spilled it all to Martin. The promotion he knew he didn´t deserve because Sasha was far more experienced and the pressure he was under because of it. The weird feeling he got from the statements he read so that he pretended not to believe in them. The worms that followed Sasha home so that she had to live in the archive and how afraid Jon had been for her. The absolutely terrifying attack of Jane Prentiss and the paranoia he felt afterwards. How he pushed away Tim and Sasha. And now... Amelia´s death.

Martin was a good listener. He nodded and made affirmative noises at the right points but never interrupted Jon. After Jon finished and slumped against Martin in exhaustion he was pulled in a closer hug.

“It´s ok.” Martin said. “I´m sorry all of that happened to you but I promise I believe you.”

“After all the time I felt paranoid about everyone I started to think I was going insane.” Jon said. “But now you confirmed that I was right. I´m not paranoid.”

“Jon you stalked poor Tim home several times. You were definitely paranoid.” 

Jon chocked out a laugh. “I guess I did. I should apologize.”

“You should. Tim´s seems like a nice guy.”

“He is. Maybe we can manage to get him to see you.”

Martin looked away. “Maybe, I guess. He´s a Beholding type too but I wouldn´t get my hopes up.”

“You said it again.” Jon frowned. “Beholding type. What does that even mean?”

“Oh... I guess you weren´t around enough to know by now. The Beholding is the god you serve.”

“Excuse me? I think I would know if I would serve a god.”

“Yeah you would think so.” Martin shrugged. “But you still do. With every statement you read it Watches you, Feeds on you – I guess that´s why you feel monitored while reading them.”

“But I didn´t agree to that!”

“You kind of did.” Martin answered. “You signed the contract Elias gave you to become the head archivist, didn´t you?”

“Elias? Again Elias? He killed Gertrude and made me... made us serve a... a god?”

“More or less. He isn´t a very nice man. At first I hoped he could see me because he is the most powerful person that serves the god of observation if anyone should be able to see me it would be him.” Martin shuddered. “But by now I´m happy he can´t see me. He´s a dangerous man.”

“But... why?”

“Serving a god gives you power. And bringing new people into serving it gets you even more power and you also have allies that can help you.”

“A god? Not the god?” Jon asked. “So there are more than just the Beholding?”

“Yes, there are fourteen altogether. Although there are some theories of a fifteenth power to emerge. Gertrude didn´t seem to put much faith into that but she has been wrong several times over the years.”

“Gertrude knew?”

“Yeah. She even made a recording where she explained everything for you but...” Martin shrugged. “Elias took it.”

“Of course he did.” Jon sighed. “I wished Gertrude was still archivist she would have known what to do.”

“I don´t.” Martin disagreed. “She was good at fighting monsters but... she wasn´t a very nice person either. All her archivist assistants died one after the other and she never cared. No even worse she killed some of them herself – for the sake of the world I guess. If she would have found me she might have just sacrificed me for some greater good too. But you...” Martin smiled at Jon. “You already did so much for me without needing to. I´m happy that someone so... empathic found me.”

“Empathic? Me?” Jon let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I think you mean someone else.”

“You just hide it really well. But the way you reacted when Sasha told you about the worms: you immediately believed her and made her stay in the archive. You really care you just don´t like to show it.”

“Well, you can see how much good that did for Amelia.”

“You have me now.” Martin took Jon´s hand in his own. “I can tell you everything about monsters and gods that I know. Together with the new statements you will get we have enough information to stop it from happening again. Just...” He hesitated.

Jon knew what Martin wanted to say even if he didn´t get the words out. “´Just stay with me?´ That´s what you want to say right?” Martin nodded. “Martin, you don´t need to promise me information for me to stay with you. I´m not so heartless to leave you the moment you aren´t useful anymore.”

Martin tried to smile at him but it ended up as a grimace. “Sorry, I didn´t want to insult you. It´s just...”

“You´re scared to be alone again.” Jon nodded. “I understand. I won´t leave you.”

Martin´s eyes became teary again but he gave him a watery smile. “I´ll do anything I can to pay you back.”

“You don´t have to pay me back for staying.”

“I know. But I will. You saved me from eternal loneliness.”

“And you already saved me from the manipulation around me. We´re quit.”

“So... how about I make us a nice cup of tea and explain about the fourteen gods and the Magnus archive?”

“You make tea?”

Martin seemed insulted. “I make the BEST tea.”

Jon couldn´t help himself and smiled. “Can´t wait to taste it.” He looked on his watch and was surprised how long he had been down here. “It´s late already we should go home to me and you can make your tea there.”

“I... I can come with you home?” Martin sounded choked.

Jon took his face in his hands and forced their eyes to meet. “Martin for the last time: I´m. Not. Leaving. You. Even for the night.”

“Thank you.” Those two words sounded more heart-felt than anything Jon ever heard.

“Oh but...” Jon frowned. “Aren´t you cursed by the snow globe? Can you even go away from it?”

“Yes Jon I´m bound to the snow globe.” Martin rolled his eyes. “But – you know – it´s a small snow globe. You can carry it around.” He picked up the snow globe that at some point had fallen from Jon´s hand to the ground. “Tada.”

“Oh.” Jon felt himself blush. “But why did you never leave the archives if you can just walk around wherever you want?”

Martin shrugged. “I did on occasions but where was I supposed to go? The Magnus archives were the best place to find a cure for my curse and after I realized at some point that I´d never find a cure I... I was just so tired. I barely moved for days sometimes. I mean... what is the point of getting up if there isn´t something waiting for you?”

Jon swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I get that. I... let´s just go home.”

There was a new light in Martin´s eyes. “Let´s go home.”


End file.
